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My co-sleeping is causing marital issues...

My DS is almost 7 months old. For almost a month now, I have come to the conclusion that we are co-sleepers. I kinda fought the idea at first because I am typically one to want my space, and was worried about setting bad habits. He was waking only about once or twice at night. Something happened around the 4th month, and he started waking up around 3 -4 times at night again. Then he had a cold. Then teething.

Waking so much again left me exhausted, and decided to just let him sleep with me so I could nurse him to sleep, and I could fall asleep too. We just kinda fell into the habit, and now I enjoy it. We both sleep better (he still wakes up quite a bit, but it seems much less burdensome since I don't really even remember it happening much), and I love the bonding. I work full time, so I feel like I get to make up for missed time with him, even if we are sleeping.

However, my husband and I see things differently. He told me from the get go that this would happen when I brought him into bed with me. He is supportive an encouraging of pretty much any parenting choices I make. He has been sleeping on the couch and the floor, so I can't say I blame him. Niether one of us are comfortable with the baby inbetween us in the bed (he can be a deep sleeper) so I suggested getting one of the guards you put under a fitted sheet so I would sleep in the middle and he isn't comfortable with that either. He wants to move back to the bed; of course, and the only reason this started was because DS had a bad cold and was not doing so good at night. The sleeping in seperate rooms thing was suppose to be much more temporary than what it turned into.

Now that my insight has change on the co-sleeping situation, I don't want to put him back into the crib. Not only is it easier to sleep (I work until 11pm, so I can't exactly go to be earlier to make up hours), I enjoy it. It just feels natural. If a baby wants to be close to mom, why fight it? That and I've become so use to it, I don't know if I could stay awake nursing him at night. After actually researching it, I realize it is not bad like mainstream ideas play it up to be and has other pros.

So there is my issue. I don't know how to compromise on the situation and I feel stuck. Things have gotten quite tense around here and I feel bad for my husband. I feel like I have to pick between the two of them. Anyone else go through this? What did you do to fix it?

Im sorry you are going through that! Would a sidecar crib work up against your mattress? I have a armsreach cosleeper crib that is perfect. I actually have her right next to me in bed now a days :) but in theory it's a happy medium.

Be that as it may, baby sleeping next to your bed may still be a good compromise.

You can always show hubs your research. Definitely tell him how much more difficult it is for you when he's in another room, maybe suggest that if he is adamant about putting him back in the crib, then he needs to be the one that gets up with him in the middle of the night.

Quoting Nuh:

Yeah I don't think the side car thing will work for our bed. We have a very low Ikea bed platform bed, and the mattress kind sits down in it, and has a wooden part that sticks out on the side.

We went through something similar. Our first solution was moving our bedding down to floor level and doubling the width ... we did it with full-sized futons. Now on version 2 of the same set-up, but with two new full-size mattresses side-by-side (these will be incorporated into a full-over-full bunkbed set-up in a couple of years), sleeping-sharing with our toddler and newborn. DH has always been on-board with sleep sharing though and we are able to find us time i n other parts of the house.

It sounds like cosleeping isn't the problem. The problem is that your husband is being silly. Why can't he sleep in the bed with a bed rail and baby on the other side? Also, BFing moms sleep with baby under the crook of their arm (one reason it is so safe) do even when baby is in between, there is no danger of him rolling over in baby. It sounds like he just needs to get out from under the social conditioning he has around this topic and probably other topics. This is such a great opportunity for leaning and growing for him! I went through this same thing with my dh. He now loves cosleeping! And he now has a totally different view of family and children so it's so wonderful that he objected in the beginning because it led to discussion and reading that changed us both for the better. I would start with Dr James McKenna and then maybe Ashley Montagu, check out uh Natural Child project and the book Our Babies Ourselves.

Can you get a futon for the baby's room so hubby has some place to sleep other then the couch or floor. DH doesn't like sleeping with our children he worries but luckily he doesn't mind the floor or couch.

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